Beyond the Wall is a generic term employed by the people of the Seven Kingdoms to refer to the large area of Westeros that lies north of the Wall. It is the only part of the continent that is not part of the realm, and thus the only place where particular attention is given to the difference between "Westeros" (the continent), and "the Seven Kingdoms" (the realm to the south of the Wall ruled by the Iron Throne).

It is inhabited by tribes that refer to themselves as the "Free Folk", known by the people of the Seven Kingdoms as wildlings. The wildlings themselves are not politically unified but consist of numerous and diverse groups. Many are semi-nomadic hunters, due to the impracticality of agriculture in the far north. Some wildlings are little more than savage and primitive raiders, but other groups live in small settled communities and villages.

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Geography

The lands Beyond the Wall are mostly uncharted. The region immediately north of the Wall includes the Haunted Forest, a vast taiga-forest which covers most of the area, extending from the Wall to the furthest uncharted north.

The forest extends from the eastern coast to a large mountain chain in the west known as the Frostfangs. The Frostfangs extend an unknown distance to the north and are quite inhospitable. However, there are rumors that even the northern Frostfangs contain hidden valleys, heated by volcanic activity, which are actually the most hospitable regions north of the Wall, and heavily settled by the wildlings.

Southwest of the Frostfangs there is a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea known as the Frozen Shore, a harsh area inhabited by fierce and primitive warriors who frequently cross the Bay of Ice to raid the lands in the North sworn to House Stark. This small area is totally enclosed by the Frostfangs, which run southeast to northwest, and the ocean.

Economy

The wildlings living north of The Wall have a hardscrabble, survival-based economy, with little settled agriculture. Most of their economic activity is fixated on hunting and gathering: they live to catch what they can eat, and they eat whatever they can catch. They use no official currency, as they are more interested in obtaining things that are directly useful to them, and thus function on the barter system.[1]

However, the wildlings do engage in at least some long-distance trade: the heavy furs of local animals adapted to the harsh cold of the extreme north are fairly valuable, and they often trade them to passing smuggler ships in exchange for iron weapons, which they cannot forge on their own. In past centuries the Night's Watch tried to stop the fur-for-iron trade along the coasts, but in recent centuries as their numbers dwindled they abandoned any attempts to prevent passage around the Wall by sea.

In the books

Author George R.R. Martin has stated that the land-area inhabited by the Free Folk beyond the Wall is vast, roughly the size of Canada: "There's actually quite a lot of Westeros north of the Wall, it's a large expanse of land, probably as large as Canada."[2]